Camelot
by Beth Smith
Summary: Quinn Fabray knew how Guinevere felt. God, did she ever know.


**Title: **Camelot  
**Fandom: **Glee  
**Characters/Pairings: **Quinn Fabray, Quick, Fuinn  
**Rating: **PG  
**Word Count: **Approx. 840  
**Summary: **Quinn Fabray understood Guinevere. God, did she ever understand.  
**A/N: **Wrote this to get out of writer's block mode... And thanks to Abby for proofreading for me! :)

Arthurian legend. It had been a two-week unit in AP English. Quinn wasn't sure how in the world she'd managed to make it through high school - maintaining pristine grades and making it to AP English her senior year - after the hell she'd been through her sophomore year, but here she was in Mrs. Huffman's class, seated between her best friends, Mercedes Jones and Kurt Hummel. The discussion of the legend, together with their reading of various books written on the topic, from _The Mists of Avalon_ to _The Book of Mordred_, from literary masterpieces to adolescent literature, had included viewing various films done about the legend, and discussing seemingly every topic throughout the course of the study.

Thiis was the last day of the unit, and Mrs. Huffman was discussing the fall of Camelot - how King Artur's beloved Queen Guinevere fell to the charms of the dashing Sir Lancelot, and betrayed the love and trust of her King.

Outside the door, she noticed Finn and Puck walking by, headed back to school for glee club after their free period at the end of the day. And that's when she realized... she understood Guinivere. God, did she ever understand. She watched the two boys as they walked down the hall, and the words Mrs. Huffman said she heard only as an invasion on her thoughts.

_Arthur was kind, honorable... and entirely oblivious to the faults of his beloved, even as she deceived him. _Quinn's eyes focused on Finn. He'd been her Arthur. He'd loved her, not even entertained the thought of her hurting him. Innocent. That was Finn. He had never once looked at her thinking she might lie to him. _While the Queen loved Arthur dearly, there was something that drew her to Lancelot that she couldn't deny. _Love Finn she had. But she had failed him just as Guinevere had failed to be faithful to the King.

_Lancelot, on the other hand, was brave and charming. There was something about him that drew Guinevere in a way that Arthur never could. _Her eyes shifted their focus to Puck, tracing the familiar lines of his mohawk, the shoulder where she'd so often rested her head when she was tired. Yes, Puck was her Lancelot. Her knight who'd fought for her, even when they'd both been wrong. The one who'd betrayed his best friend for her.

_Camelot was intended as a perfect place. A land where men did good for the sake of doing good, and where the royalty was served with unwavering devotion by knights who lived for their protection... Arthur hoped in establishing Camelot to create a Utopian land of absolute good and justice, where each person had his or her own place. _Before the baby, McKinley had been her and Finn's own little Camelot. They were sophomores, and already the entire school looked up to them. Head cheerleader and star quarterback. That was as close as McKinley had to royalty. And then the dashing Lancelot with a mohawk had stepped in and awakened something in Quinn she'd never known existed before. And the little Camelot that she and Finn had built for themselves crumbled around them.

She wondered for a moment if Arthur had looked at Guinevere the same way that Finn had looked at her when all was right with the world. Like he was the luckiest guy in the world to have someone so special in his life. Sure, it was only a legend... but Quinn still wondered. Had Arthur's eyes filled with anger and hurt the way Finn's had when he asked for the truth in the choir room? And had Guinevere's heart been torn from her chest when she realized how much she hurt the man who so loved her, as Quinn's had when she told the painful truth?

Mrs. Huffman looked around the classroom, noticing that some of her students weren't paying as much attention as others. "I want all of you to take out a sheet of paper," she said. "Write your name and the date on it..."

Torn from her thoughts by a gentle nudge from Kurt, Quinn looked up just in time to catch the rest of the instructions. "And on that paper," said the woman thoughtfully, amongst groans from students who didn't want yet _another _essay in AP English. "Instead of an essay..." An almost audible sigh of relief went through the room. "I want you to write, in one word, your opinion of what destroyed Camelot. Think about it for a few minutes before the bell rings, and I need it on my desk before you walk out the door."

Quinn looked at the paper on her desk. She knew as well as any fictional Guinevere could've known what had destroyed Camelot.

She wrote very simply, "Love," before putting the sheet of paper on the teacher's desk, and walking out the door.


End file.
